California’s list of beloved restaurant losses has gained one of its oldest names. Cook’s Seafood, the Menlo Park market and restaurant that served generations of Peninsula families, abruptly closed on October 28, 2026, after 98 years in business.
A notice at the restaurant said all Cook’s locations were closing effective immediately and described 2026 as a difficult year for restaurants. Employees received the news overnight, and no fuller explanation was available. The closure also ended Cook’s much newer Pleasanton restaurant, which had opened in May 2025 after years of planning.
From police officer to seafood landmark
Bill Cook, a local police officer who had encountered fish and chips while serving in England during World War I, founded the business in 1928. It began as a fish market that also served the British staple, then grew into the unusual combination customers knew for decades: one door for the market, another for the restaurant and an interior hallway connecting them.
Ownership changed in the 1940s, when Cook sold the business to Robert Rahe. Roy Crumrine joined as a teenage dishwasher in 1955, married a server he met there and became an owner in 1963. The Crumrine family eventually carried the restaurant into a third generation.
Fresh fish without the fuss
Cook’s stayed intentionally casual as Menlo Park changed around it. Diners ordered at the counter, took a number and settled into vinyl booths or patio seats. Meals arrived on paper plates with lemon, house-made tartar sauce and thick-cut fries.
Fish and chips made with Atlantic cod or wild Alaskan halibut accounted for a large share of restaurant sales. The menu also featured fried prawns, sand dabs, petrale sole sandwiches, salmon burgers, crab Louie, clam chowder and cioppino. Next door, the market sold salmon, halibut, Dungeness crab, oysters and other seafood, with employees offering cooking advice, special cuts and crab cleaning.
Why customers loved Cook’s
Value mattered, but the people behind the counter mattered just as much. Veteran employee Dan Dowler first visited as a child, began working there after military service and spent more than five decades helping customers choose and prepare seafood. Other employees also stayed for decades, giving the market a continuity rare in any business.
Families returned across generations, especially during the holidays, when advance Dungeness crab orders could produce a line out the door. Cook’s survived changing tastes by adding fish tacos, lobster rolls and crab cakes without abandoning the straightforward dishes that built its reputation.
The ending was sudden, with no farewell season or final rush. What Cook’s leaves behind is nearly a century of ordinary rituals: Friday fish and chips, holiday crab, advice from a trusted counter clerk and the confidence that a familiar Menlo Park institution would be there when dinner called.
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